ARCHIVING SOCCER HOOLIGANISM - TOWARDS A STUDY OF

400 FOOTBALL GANGS

Abstract

The essay looks at how to conduct better

contemporary research into football hooligan gangs

in the light of flawed media reporting of the

phenomenon and a general move away from ethnography

in sociology and criminology. The essay explores

some theoretical and methodological issues arising

from conducting a research project into football

hooligan writings. It looks at their utility for

longer term ethnographic and historical research

into the hundreds of football hooligan gangs that

can be identified in a longitudinal cultural

mapping of the field. The essay presents material

from a sustained archival research project where

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one copy of each item of a genre known as football

hooligan memoirs was archived, and authors and

publishers interviewed. The essay is an audit for a

contemporary and possible future criminology of

football hooligan gangs which illuminates some of

the new directions and trajectories in the

discipline .

Keywords

Archive, Crime, Subculture, Hooligan Memoir, Gangs,

Firms, Football Hooliganism, Ethnography

‘Who Are Ya? Who Are Ya? Who Are Ya?’

Chant from one football crowd to a rival

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‘Teenage louts, some as young as 13 and fuelled by cocaine and other drugs, are using mobile phones to organise through group texts. Punch-ups between rival fans are also arranged via Facebook and You Tube. Cops have been forced to raid burger bars to break up gangs because the teenage tearaways are tooyoung to be served in pubs. Millwall’s young thugs call themselves the WACKY YOUTH, Liverpool’s teens louts are called the URCHINS and Barnsley’s are known as 50 UP. Arsenal’s young hooligans used to bethe TOOTY FRUITIES, slang for cocaine, but dropped it after getting stick from rival louts who branded the tag effeminate. A police source said “these youngsters have been brought up to take on the mantle from their fathers and are groomed to have the same hatred for their team’s rivals”. Banning orders have helped slash levels of football violencefrom its peak 20 years ago. The police source said “these kids don’t respect officers. Most older generation supporters call it a day when the cops arrive but the young ones will stand and argue”. Police are convinced cocaine is behind the new soccer violence. The source said “the worrying thingis coke makes people unpredictable and more prone toviolence”.’

‘Hooli-sons New Scourge of Football’, News of the World, 13 April 2008

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How do we conduct better contemporary sociological

and criminological research into football hooligan

gangs today in the light of hysterical media

reporting of the phenomenon such as the article in

the News of the World quoted above? In this essay I

want to raise some theoretical and methodological

issues arising from conducting a research project

into football hooligan writings and their utility

for longer term ethnographic and historical

research into the football hooligan gangs that can

be identified in a longitudinal cultural mapping of

the field. In a sustained archival research project

over many years, the director of the project

collected one copy of each item of a genre known as

football hooligan memoirs as they were being

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published, up until the present day (see Appendix

1). Authors and publishers were subsequently

interviewed by the director and the research team.

The initial idea of the archive was partly to

service PhD and Masters ethnographies of football

hooliganism and related work. The research team

consisted of registered PhD and Masters students in

sociology of sport and criminology. I publish up to

date material on the archive in this essay to

encourage debate about the accuracy of the audit

and to facilitate more widespread research into the

phenomenon. As a result of previous publications I

have been approached by members of gangs and their

associates in order to facilitate ethnographic and

historical research into specific firms. Since the

late 1980s there has been an enduring underground

subculture of such football hooligan memoir

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publishing which eventually became mainstream. The

texts are what I call, with a considerable sense of

irony, ‘hit’n’tell’ or ‘hit and tell’. In earlier

published work from this research project I

considered some aspects of the links between what I

call ‘claustropolian criminology’, post-subculture

and the history of football hooligan gangs. Here, I

want to conduct an audit for a possible future

criminology of football hooligan gangs which

illuminates some of the new directions and

trajectories in the discipline.

The Firm

This football hooligan literature, collected in the

research archive is, for some commentators,

unashamedly partisan and often laughably boastful,

recounting up to fifty years of (mostly) male

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football fandom associated with a particular British

league club, popular music and fashion obsessions

and the behaviour of its ‘firm’. Sociological

Research Online (Poulton, 2012a) has published

reflections on research into football hooliganism

and some of its attendant difficulties. This essay

develops some of these issues. The subculture of

football hooliganism is, as Emma Poulton has

stressed (Poulton 2012a, 2012b), most certainly a

‘hyper-masculine’ world, almost camp in its extreme

presentation of modern masculinities. ‘Firm’ as a

term has long been used in popular cultural

discourse, as well as criminology, about

hooliganism. ‘The Firm’ was a BBC play by director

Alan Clarke, first shown in 1989, which was

subsequently remade as a feature film by Nick Love,

also director of a film of John King’s debut novel

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‘The Football Factory’. Often the hooligan memoir

books are alleged to be factually misleading, and

for that and other reasons come with something of a

health warning in terms of academic research. There

is fierce debate amongst academics about how useful

these documents are as narrative texts (Dart 2008;

Gibbons, Dixon and Braye 2008; Poulton 2006, 2007,

2008a, 2008b, 2012a, 2012b; Pearson 2011; 2012). In

this essay I want to claim that the football

hooligan memoir literature, if used carefully, is

necessary but not sufficient to the task of the

mapping of the contours of the histories of football

hooligan gangs in Britain. The publishers of

hooligan memoirs such as Milo books have also

produced (Walsh 2003; Davies 2008; Hackman 2010;

Black 2012) books on gangs in the cities of

Manchester and Salford, contemporary investigations

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of the highest journalistic standard, often using

ethnographic methods. The research project as a

whole covered many different aspects of literature

relating to football hooliganism – films,

documentaries, exhibitions, websites, social media,

fans forums, internet, novels, short stories and so

on – but this essay concentrates on the determinedly

‘old media’ of books.

As opposed to the relative dearth of criminological,

sociological or cultural studies accounts of

specific football hooligan gangs since Gary

Armstrong’s prize winning academic ethnography of

Sheffield United’s main firm, the BBC or Blades

Business Crew, (Armstrong 1998; Cowens 2001, 2009) ,

‘low culture’ amateur journalistic accounts continue

to proliferate; what I term hit and tell or

hit’n’tell. They are now extensive in number and

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together form a vast library of hooligan stories in

the fashionable, confessional form of sports fan

memoir (Hornby 1992; Cowley 2009; Pearson 2012).

Part of the research work has been archival,

involving a comprehensive collection and reading of

over twenty five years worth of football hooligan

memoirs in book form. There are currently in total

107 books in the archive, written by self-confessed

‘hooligans’ about their football hooligan exploits

or by writers who have interviewed them about these

activities. They are collected in the unique

research archive to showcase the research reported

on here (see Appendix 1) and are often very

difficult to locate elsewhere, being published and

collected in a period of over half a century. The

firms, crews and gangs covered are associated with

current professional Premier or Football League

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football clubs in England, Wales and Scotland, or

clubs who have once been League members (although

it is true that the general non-league scene also

has firms associated with it). The earliest memoir

in the archive can be dated at 1987 and the latest

in 2013. There are still football hooligan memoirs

in the pipeline today.

The Firm: British Football Hooligan Gangs, 1960s to

2010s

Modern British football hooligan gangs date back to

the mid 1960s. They elicit a strange fascination in

all kinds of media today, especially online. For

instance, Former Inter City Firm (ICF) West Ham

United football hooligan Cass Pennant’s Urban Edge

films, through their YouTube channel Top Boys TV,

have produced short videos on specific notorious

football hooligan firms. Chelsea’s Headhunters,

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Millwall’s Bushwackers, Nottingham Forest’s

Executive Crew, Birmingham City’s Zulus, Hartlepool

United’s Blue Order and West Ham United’s Inter-City

Firm have been made and uploaded. Only Hartlepool

United’s Blue Order are currently unrepresented in

the football hooligan memoir research archive. I am

interested in auditing here the archive of hooligan

memoir books so far published in order to see what

resources for a future criminology, for critical

research based on participant observation and

ethnography of football gangs, they may contain.

These 107 football hooligan memoirs can be

rigorously studied for their contribution to a

mapping of the myriad British football hooligan

gangs. There are many dozens of hit and tell

published accounts by self-proclaimed ‘top boys’,

with a variety of club firms involved. There are

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also A-Z volumes of hooligan firms, mapped

historically and geographically throughout the

nation. As one book’s dust jacket proclaimed, it

‘covers the whole spectrum of gangs from Aberdeen to

Luton Town…the Barnsley Five-O and their vicious

slashing at the hands of Middlesbrough…the combined

force of Dundee Utility…the riots of the Leeds

Service Crew…Benny’s Mob, the Main Firm, the Lunatic

Fringe, the Bastard Squad – they’re all here,

together with numerous photos of mobs, fights and

riots’ (first edition of Lowles and Nicholls 2007a).

Football Clubs in the Hooligan Memoirs

As well as the England national football team

(Pennant and Nicholls 2006) 44 British football

clubs are ‘represented’ in the most comprehensive

list that can currently be compiled from the

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football hooligan memoir archive. (see Appendix 2).

The clubs themselves distance their institution from

the firms in the strongest terms; it is the firms

who claim club allegiance.The research question for

this essay is: how many firms have been in existence

since the 1960s according to the 107 football

hooligan memoirs in the archive and what are their

names? Additionally, I want to ask how many firms

have been in existence since the 1960s according to

other extraneous literature, and what are their

names?

Hooligan Firms in the Hooligan Memoirs

There are firms ‘represented’ (or, by extension,

implicated because of the club history) in the 107

football hooligan memoirs. The following section

audits those football hooligan firms and is in order

of football club with which the gangs are

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associated.

Aberdeen Soccer Casuals are Aberdeen. Gooners and

The Herd are Arsenal. The Steamers, C Crew, Villa

Hardcore, Villa Youth and Villa Hardcore Apprentices

are Aston Villa. Zulu Warriors, Zulu Juniors and

Junior Business Boys are Birmingham City. Mongy’s

Cuckoo Boys, Tonge Moor Slashers, Billy Whizz Fan

Club, Horwich Casuals, The Omega and Astley Boys are

Bolton Wanderers. The Ointment and Bradford Section

Five are Bradford City. Headhunters, North Lancing

Firm, Bosun Boys and West Street are Brighton and

Hove Albion. The Pirates, Tote Enders, Gas Hit Squad

and Gas Youth Squad are Bristol Rovers. Suicide

Squad, Suicide Section Fives and Suicide Youth Squad

are Burnley. Soul Crew, Inter Valley Firm, Valley

Commandos, Valley Rams, Pure Violence Mob, Dirty

Thirty, D Firm, The Young Boys, B Troop and C-Squad

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are Cardiff City. Border City Firm and Benders

Service Crew are Carlisle United. Celtic Soccer Crew

are Celtic. Shed Boot Boys, North Stand Boys,

Pringle Boys, Anti Personnel Firm and Headhunters

are Chelsea. Dundee Utility and Alliance Under Fives

are Dundee and Dundee United. Scallies and Snorty

Forty are Everton. Gorgie Boys and The Casual Soccer

Firm are Hearts. Capital City Service, Young Leith

Team and Baby Crew are Hibernian. Cowshed Enders,

Khmer Blue, Kenmargra, The Pringles, Huddersfield

Young Casuals and Huddersfield Youth Squad are

Huddersfield Town. Mad Young Tigers, Kempton Enders,

Hull City Pyschos, Silver Cod Squad, City Casuals

and The Minority are Hull City. Leeds Service Crew,

Infant Hit Squad, Intensive Care Unit, Yorkshire

Republican Army and Very Young Team are Leeds

United.

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The Wise Men, Matthew and Marks Alliance, Thurnby

Republican Army, Inter City Harry Firm, Braunstone

Inter City Firm, Long Stop Boys, Market Traders,

Baby Squad, Wongs and Young Baby Squad are Leicester

City. Annie Road Crew, The Ordinary Mob, Huyton

Baddies, Scallies and The Urchins are Liverpool. The

Oak Road, The Harry’s, Castle Bar, The Hockwell

Ring, Steamers, Men in Gear, The Riffs, Bury Park

Youth Posse and M12s are Luton Town. Guvnors, Young

Guvnors, Cool Cats, The Borg Elite, Motorway Crew

and Mayne Line Service Crew are Manchester City. RedArmy, Men

in Black, Cockney Reds, Perry Boys, Young Munichs and Inter-City

Jibbers are Manchester United. Frontline, Ayresome Angels, The

Beer Belly Crew, NTP and Boro Joeys are Middlesbrough. Halfway

Liners, Nutty Turn Out, Treatment, F-Troop and Bushwackers are

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Millwall. Motherwell Saturday Service, Tufty Club, Soccer Shorties

and Nu-Kru are Motherwell. Red Dogs, Naughty Forty, Forest

Executive Crew, Forest Mad Squad and Forest Young Lads are

Nottingham Forest. Sewer Mob, Sholver Leathers, Crossley Skins,

Werneth Mob, Glodwick and Fine Young Cannibals are Oldham

Athletic. Pompey Boot Boys, and 6.57 Crew are Portsmouth. The

Gentry, Spotty Dog Crew, Town End Mob, Section 4/5, Preston Para

Soccer, Leyland Boys, Preston Youth Firm and PrestonFoot Patrol are

Preston North End. Inter-City Firm and Her Majesty’sService are

Rangers. Shoreham Republican Army, Suicide Squad, Blades

Business Crew (BBC),Bramall Barmy Army and Darnall Massive are

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Sheffield United. East Bank Republican Army, Owls Crime Squad,

Inter-City Owls and Owls Flying Squad are Sheffield Wednesday.

Naughty Forty and Under Fives are Stoke City. Swansea Jacks, Jack

Army, Jack Casuals, Stone Island Casuals, Swansea Youth Squad and

Swansea Riot Squad are Swansea City. The Yids, N17s,Tottenham

Casuals, The Paxton Boys, and Tottenham Massive are Tottenham

Hotspur. Watford Boot Boys, Category C, The Watford Men, Watford

Youth, Drunk and Disorderly Firm and Watford Away Raiders are

Watford. Clubhouse Mob, Smethwick Mob and Section 5 Squad are

West Bromwich Albion. Inter-City Firm, Teddy Bunter Firm, Mile End

Mob and Under Fives are West Ham United. Yam Yam Army, Bridge

Boys, Subway Army and Temple Street Mafia are

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Wolverhampton

Wanderers. Frontline are Wrexham.

Through this methodology, drawing on the 107

football hooligan memoirs and extrapolating from the

clubs and gangs these texts mention, there are

narrative testimonies of the existence of 191

British football hooligan firms, at least for some

period of time, however short, over the last fifty

years with a connection to the fans of the

particular football clubs. Sociologically this is a

significant statistic and enables researchers to

conduct historical and ethnographic work on these

firms. This statistic though is likely to be a

considerable underestimate as many football hooligan

firms come in and out of existence very quickly or

simply change their names. There is also the

‘windup’ factor (Pearson 2012) common in football

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culture in this regard which puts out fictional

names for crews and waits for the unsuspecting

media, or naive academia, to pounce. Another

complicating factor is that ‘main’ football firms

are frequently made up from many, different smaller

gangs in the local area. For instance, it has been

suggested in web forums that Middlesbrough’s main

firm Frontline comprised, at least in the past,

local gangs known as: B-Farm Boys, Border Boot Boys,

Park End Crew, Newport Gang, Dogg Mob, Stockton

Firm, Stockton Wrecking Crew, Redcar Reds, Port

Boys, Haverton Hill Mob, NTP (actually Netherfields,

Thorntree and Park End estates mob), Block 2, Bob

End Crew, Ayresome Angels, Eston Boys, and Whinney

Bronx Boys. The same is almost certainly true of the

other firms documented here.

So far, in this particular audit, I have

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concentrated on the firms who have had football

hooligan memoirs written about them, or are alluded

to in the football hooligan memoirs in the research

archive. However, there are many other volumes in

this considerable football hooligan literature

undder general review in the research project which

cover numerous other ‘firms’, or ‘faces’, or ‘top

boys’ of single clubs, as well as namechecks of

countless British professional football clubs (Ward

1996, 1998; Brimson 2000; Pennant and King 2003;

Pennant 2005; Lowles 2005; Lowles and Nicholls

2007a, 2007b) often from the lower leagues, or non-

league.

Additional Hooligan Firms

Other crews or firms listed in this historical

mapping exercise, which exclude the firms which have

so far had specific memoirs written about them, are

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discussed below in A-Z order of football club.

Section B and the Red Army Firm are Airdrie United.

A Company and East Bank Boot Boys are Aldershot.

Soccer Crew are Arbroath. Inter-City Tykes, BHS and

Five-O are Barnsley. Darwen Mob, H Division, Tool

Bar, Mill Hill Mob and Blackburn Youth are Blackburn

Rovers. The Rammy, Benny’s Mob, Bisons Riot Squad,

The Muckers, Seaside Mafia, Blackpool Tangerine

Service, The Mob and Blackpool Service Crew are

Blackpool. Boscombe Casual Elite are Bournemouth.

Hounslow Mentals and TW8 Casuals are Brentford. City

Service Firm, Inter City Robins and East End are

Bristol City. Interchange Riot Squad and Interchange

Crew are Bury. The Main Firm, Cambridge Casuals,

Pringle Boys and The Young Irish are Cambridge

United. B Mob are Charlton Athletic. Cheltenham

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Volunteer Force are Cheltenham Town. Beer Belly

Crew, Chester Casual Army and The 125 are Chester

City. Chesterfield Bastard Squad are Chesterfield.

Colchester Riot Squad and Barsiders are Colchester

United. The Legion, The Coventry Casuals and

Coventry Legion Youth are Coventry City. Railway

Town Firm, Crewe Youth and Gresty Road Casuals are

Crewe Alexandra. The Whitehorse, The Wilton, the

Nifty Fifty, Naughty Forty, Dirty Thirty and Under

Fives are Crystal Palace. Sheddy Boot Boys, Bank

Top 200, Wrecking Crew, Game As Fuck Association,

Darlington Casuals, The Gaffa, The Townies and Under

Fives are Darlington. Pot-Bellied Lunatic Army,

Derby Lunatic Fringe, C Seats, C Stand, Bob Bank

Lunatic Army and The Orphans are Derby County.

Doncaster Defence Regiment are Doncaster Rovers.

Dundee Soccer Crew are Dundee. Tannadice Trendies

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are Dundee United. Carnegie Soccer Service are

Dunfermline Athletic. H Troop, City Hit Squad and

The Sly Crew are Exeter City. Falkirk Fear are

Falkirk. SW6, Thames Bank Travellers, Green Pole

Boys, H Block and Fulham Youth Crew are Fulham.

Gillingham Youth Firm are Gillingham. Park Street

Mafia, The Nunsthorpe Lads, Ice House Lads, Scartho

Lads, Grimsby Hit Squad and Cleethorpes Beach Patrol

are Grimsby Town. The Casuals are Halifax Town.

Pooly Till I Die, Hartlepool In The Area, Hartlepool

Wrecking Crew, the Greenies, The Moose Men and Blue

Order are Hartlepool United. Inter City Firm are

Hereford United. Ipswich Punishment Squad and North

Stand Boys are Ipswich Town. Orient Transit Firm,

Iced Buns and Doughnuts are Leyton Orient. Clanford

End Boys and Lincoln Transit Elite are Lincoln City.

Moss Rats are Macclesfield Town. Pyscho Express,

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SAS, Carrot Crew, The Cucumbers and Mansfield Shady

Express are Mansfield Town. No Casuals and Portland

Bill Seaside Squad are Montrose.The Leazes End, The

Bender Squad, Mental Central, Newcastle Mainline

Express and The Gremlins are Newcastle United.

County Tavern Mob, Elly Boys and Northampton Affray Team

are Northampton Town. C Squad, C Firm, Barclay Boot Boys, NR1,

The Trawlermen, Executive Travel Club, Steins, Magnificent Seven

and Norwich Hit Squad are Norwich City. Executive Crew, The

Bullwell Crew, The Lane Enders and Roadsiders are Notts County.

The Business, South Midlands Hit Squad, Warlords, Headington

Casuals, The 850, Oxford City Crew and Oxford Youth Outfit are

Oxford United. Peterborough Terrace Squad, Saturday Service,

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Under Fives and Blue Division are Peterborough United. A38 Crew,

The Central Element, Devonport Boys, We Are The Lyndhurst,

Plymouth Youth Firm and Plymouth Youth Element are Plymouth

Argyle. Vale Lunatic Fringe and Vale Young Casuals are Port Vale.

Ladbroke Grove Mob, Fila Mob, C Mob, The Hardcore and Naughty

Forty are Queen’s Park Rangers. Kirkcaldy Soccer Casuals and

Kirkcaldy Baby Crew are Raith Rovers. New Inn Steamers, Berkshire

Bovver Boys, Dirty Thirty and Reading Youth are Reading. East Dene

Mafia, Tivoli Boot Boys, The Friday Crew, RotherhamCasuals,

Rotherham Express Crew and Section 5 are Rotherham United.

NN10 are Rushden and Diamonds. Fair City Firm and Mainline Baby

Squad are St Johnstone. Love Street Division are St

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Mirren. The

Ironclad and True Irons are Scunthorpe United. English Border Front

are Shrewsbury Town. Milton Mob, The Warrens, the Inside Crew,

Suburban Casuals and The Ugliest Men are Southampton. Southend

Bootboys, CS Crew and Southend Liberal Front are Southend United.

The Hit Squad, The Company and Edgeley Volunteer Force are

Stockport County. Redskins, Boss Lads, Vauxies and The Seaburn

Casuals are Sunderland. Swindon Town Aggro Boys, Gussethunters,

Southsiders, South Ciders, South Side Crew and Swindon Active

Service are Swindon Town. Torquay Mental Mob, Bayline Firm and

Torquay Youth Squad are Torquay United. Free LibraryBoys and

Tranmere Stanley Boys are Tranmere Rovers. Street Enders, Special

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Patrol Group, Barmy Army and Junction 9 are Walsall.Wigan Thieves,

Wall Gang, Vulture Squad and Goon Squad are Wigan Athletic. York

Nomad Society are York City.

On this methodology there are calculated to be 209

other firms, distinct from the ones mentioned in the

football hooligan memoirs themselves. All of these

British hooligan gangs have been in existence at

some time over the last fifty years, even for a very

short time. Some are still in existence, having had

years of longevity. Some firms and some clubs have

undoubtedly been missed in this audit. The research

team would be glad to hear of omissions so that they

can be rectified in the research. Nevertheless, the

approximate total of football hooligan gangs in

Britain since the watershed year of 1967-1968 (when,

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for instance, skinheads were first emerging as a

youth subculture) can be calculated, adding the

previous 191 identified. It is a grand total of 400.

In this context it is noteworthy that the authors of

two volumes on British football hooligan gangs

history (Lowles and Nicholls 2007a, 2007b) published

by Milo claim to have interviewed 200 hundred former

hooligans, mostly representing one gang each.

Firms’ Names: Argot and Style

Names of the football hooligan firms revealed in the

football hooligan memoir archive are themselves

significant. It is possible to identify a total of

400 names of firms from the football hooligan memoir

archive in the research carried out so far. The

names have often been used to confuse perceived

‘enemies’: other firms, the media, academics and

police. They are an integral part of the argot and

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style, the reflexive subcultural language of

football hooligans, even if the gangs are small,

transitory and relatively short lived. Hyper-

localised notoriety is what is sought, often down to

the pub or street where the firms meet. One effect

of the hit and tell literature surveyed in this

essay is to provide an historical glossary of the

oblique discourse of the football firms during the

last half century, which can be aped, and adapted,

by newcomers on the scene. ‘Inter-city’ and

‘Service’ refer to railway provision enabling crews

to travel to away games in the 1970s and 1980s.

‘Scarfers’ or ‘shirts’ denote ordinary football

supporters (who often wear scarfs or shirts in club

colours) as opposed to ‘casuals’ who are the ‘well-

dressed’ hooligans. ‘Billy whizz’ is amphetamine.

‘Under-fives’ are junior hooligan crews. ‘On their

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toes’ means to run away. ‘Toe to toe’ is fighting at

close quarters. ‘On top’ is trouble about to happen.

‘Stanley’ is Stanley knife. There are also regional

variations which mark out territory. ‘Scally’ (for

casual) is used as a term of abuse outside

Merseyside but a badge of pride inside. ‘Trainees’

(for training shoes) would only be used by those

living on Merseyside. ‘Woollyback’ is everyone’s way

of describing the out-of-towners not from a large

conurbation or city. ‘Briefs’ (tickets) and ‘tom’

(for jewellery, originally in cockney rhyming slang

‘tomfoolery’) are phrases well used in street gangs

everywhere. One instance of the oral culture in the

football hooligan memoir archive is the general

street style associated with gangs and gangsters and

this aspect is reflected in nearly all the above

audit of 400 football hooligan firms.

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Towards Historical and Ethnographic Study of 400

Firms

There is still a dearth of ethnographic research on

football hooligan gangs. In the ‘New Ethnographies’

series published by Manchester University Press,

socio-legal academic Geoff Pearson’s An Ethnography of

English Football Fans: Cans, Cops and Carnival (Pearson 2012)

has provided sociology of sport, sociology of law

and criminology with a much needed fresh

perspective on football fan research. But the

research is not into football hooligan gangs, or

football hooliganism, as such. There are though

three excellent participation observation studies

of football fans presented in Pearson’s book, all

conducted by the author, from a period of fifteen

years of fieldwork, which emphasise the need for

ethnographies of football hooligan gangs. Pearson

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focused on long term ethnographies, conducted by

him, of fans of Blackpool FC, Manchester United FC

and England; in Pearson’s words ‘the loud and noisy

subculture of wider football fandom’ (Pearson

2012). I have argued for many years that sociology

of sport and criminology should produce better and

more rigorous ethnographies of football fans to

counter the litany of misinformation and fantasy

which abounds on this topic, often stemming from

tabloid journalism, the hooligan memoir books and

internet sites and the ‘media hooligan wars’ that

have been created. Geoff Pearson has certainly

answered part of the call. Max Gluckman, and his

colleagues, who founded the Department of

Anthropology at the University of Manchester in the

1940s and created ‘the Manchester School’, would be

proud of Pearson as one the new practitioners of

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that ethnographic work in a book series explicitly

building on their fine legacy.

Pearson has already a strong record in this area of

research. His important previous book published in

2007, (Stott and Pearson 2007) written with

psychologist Cliff Stott, was published by Pennant

books, one of the publishers of football hooligan

memoirs. As we have seen already Cass Pennant

himself is an ex-football hooligan associated with

the ICF of West Ham United and through his company

Urban Edge films made the notable social history

documentary film Casuals released in 2011, directed by

Mick Kelly and narrated by Peter Hooton, singer in

The Farm and Justice Tonight. Urban Edge films,

through their YouTube channel Top Boys TV, as we

have seen also produce informative short videos on

the history of specific football hooligan ‘firms’. I

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maintain that the popular football hooligan memoirs

industry, off and online, can, if used properly, can

add to a ‘rough’ popular memory around hooliganism

and identify ‘crews’, ‘faces’ and ‘top boys’,

however partially, so that eventually sustained

ethnographic, participant observation and historical

work can be undertaken with ‘hooligans’ in various

contemporary firms. Pearson’s book is a good example

of a rigorous ethnography of football fans which did

in fact make use of ‘fan confessionals’ or ‘hoolie-

lit’ (Pearson, 2012: 9-10) though he is also

sceptical about how far such use can be extended. In

the case of Blackpool he reported that he could find

no evidence of football hooligan gangs at the time

(mid-late 1990s) although he acknowledged the

existence of football hooligan gangs in the clib’s

past history. In the cases of Manchester United and

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Engand, a number of football hooligan memoir books

have been published (see Appendix 1 and 2). Although

a football ‘thug’ book from Blackpool gangs has been

rumoured over many years, it has never been

published. Geoff Pearson’s is a subtle, engaging

account of the interaction of fans who sometimes

become involved in what the media call ‘football

hooliganism’, a notoriously difficult concept to pin

down, floating as a signifier between legal,

criminological and moral discourses in a media still

over obsessed with such ‘folk devils’ through its

moral panics (Cohen 2011). Geoff Pearson is

especially good in recreating the way what we

describe as racism and violence at and around

football matches emerges in fact from social

situations and is not always attributable to

organised right wing political organisation or even

38

formally organised football gangs. Pearson’s

original theoretical contribution is highlighted by

his identification of a distinct subculture of

football spectator – what he calls the ‘carnival

fan’. He follows this theme throughout the book and

it frames the reporting of his fieldwork, from

Britain and abroad. He sets this notion of the

carnival fan in the context of the large literature

of previous research into hooliganism, football and

fandom, especially that dwindling group of

researchers using participant observation and

ethnographic accounts. His exploration has a

sustained discourse on ethnography, theory method

and practice in general which sets the reader up

for the subsequent chapters where we are introduced

to the carnival fans of first Blackpool, where his

original, data-rich research was conducted in the

39

1990s, and then fans of Manchester United and the

England national football team, drawing on his

research mainly from the 2000s. There are many

fascinating tales of the trials and tribulations of

a participant observer in a public realm where

‘football violence’ - although often ritualistic,

as Pearson cleverly demonstrates - is real enough

in its consequences. Pearson was, over the years,

headbutted, witnessed numerous violent incidents,

heard hundreds of instances of racist, sexist and

anti-social chanting and experienced serious run-

ins with the ‘old bill’, all in the call of duty.

Pearson’s book, persuasively reworking Mikhail

Bakhtin’s notion of ‘carnival’ to encompass

(mainly) hardcore ‘lads’ at play following their

beloved football team, local or national, home and

abroad, is a contemporary example of how productive

40

and revealing participant observation and

ethnographic work around football culture can be.

Criminologist Patrick Slaughter’s (Slaughter 2004,

2013) participant observation and ethnographic work

is another good example of the methodological

issues raised in this essay. His work has involved

what he calls the ‘old boys’ (Slaughter 2004) of

football hooligan firms, including those associated

with Leeds United, Portsmouth and Brighton and Hove

Albion, all of which have had football hooligan

memoirs written about them (See Appendix 1 and 2).

In the case of Leeds United casuals from the 1980s

his work has incorporated production of a

travelling photographic exhibition which eventually

became a book (Slaughter 2013).

Conclusion

41

This essay has elaborated a research project which

has involved the long term creation of a research

archive of football hooligan memoirs.The audit of

400 football firms reported here drew on the

research archive. The essay has shown that it is

possible to use the research archive in order to

embark on ethnographic and historical research into

at least some of these football gangs. It is

significant that the origins of the concept of

‘gang’ in the Chicago School criminology (Jencks

2005; Blackman 2005; Gelder 2007) of the early part

of the twentieth century risks being erased as new

generations of scholars emerge in a new century with

well developed critiques of earlier work but this

essay is in a sense part homage to the Chicago

School, echoing the title of Frederic Thrasher’s The

Gang: A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago, a classic study from

42

the early twentieth century now republished in its

original form (Thrasher 2013). However, the use of

the football hooligan memoir research archive in

contemporary and future criminology would

necessitate the use of contemporary application and

development of new directions in crime and deviance,

going well beyond the perspectives of the Chicago

School and other twentieth century criminology (Hall

2012, Hall and Winlow 2012, 2013, Winlow and

Atkinson, 2012).

43

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Ben Horne, Simon Penny and Patrick

Slaughter for their research work on the hit and

tell project, and to all the authors and publishers

of football hooligan memoirs who gave their time

freely to answer questions.

44

Appendix 1: Football Hooligan Memoirs Archive

The following list has, in A-Z alphabetical order

of author, the 107 football hooligan memoir books

45

collected in the ‘hit and tell’ research archive at

the School of Human Movement Studies, Charles Sturt

University, NSW, Australia. Full titles are in the

bibliography.

Diary of the Real Soul Crew: The Complete Chronicles (Abraham

2010)

Diary of the Real Soul Crew 2 (Abraham 2009)

Diary of the Real Soul Crew (Abraham 2008)

Bloody Casuals (Allan 1989)

Flying With the Owls Crime Squad (Allen and Naylor 2005)

The Boys from the Mersey (Allt 2004)

Playing Up With Pompey (Beech 2006)

Guvnor General (Bennion 2011)

Hibs Boy (Blance and Terry 2009)

Hotshot (Blaney 2013)

Grafters (Blaney 2012)

March of the Hooligans (Dougie Brimson 2007)

46

Kicking Off (Dougie Brimson 2006)

Eurotrashed (Dougie Brimson 2003)

Barmy Army (Dougie Brimson 2000)

The Geezer’s Guide to Football (Dougie Brimson 1998)

God Save The Team (Eddy Brimson 2001)

Tear Gas and Ticket Touts (Eddy Brimson 1998)

Derby Days (Brimson and Brimson 1998)

Capital Punishment (Brimson and Brimson 1997)

England, My England (Brimson and Brimson, 1996a)

Everywhere We Go (Brimson and Brimson 1996b)

Villains (Brown and Brittle 2006)

Booted and Suited (Brown 2009)

Bovver (Brown 2000)

A Casual Look (Brown and Harvey 2001)

Among The Thugs (Buford 2001)

Bully CFC (Buglioni and King 2006)

Rangers ICF (Carrick and King 2006)

47

Sex, Drugs and Football Thugs (Chester 2005)

Naughty (Chester 2003)

Rangers and the Famous ICF (Chugg 2011)

Inside The Forest Executive Crew (Clarke and King 2005)

Divide Of the Steel City (Cowens and Cronshaw, with Allen

2007)

Blades Business Crew 2 (Cowens 2009)

Blades Business Crew (Cowens 2001)

Wednesday, Rucks and Rock’n’Roll (Cronshaw 2012)

The Rise and Fall of the Cardiff City Valley Rams (Davies 2009)

The Brick (Debrick 2005)

England’s Number One (Dodd and McNee 1998)

These Colours Don’t Run (Dykes and Colvin 2007)

Bring Out Your Riot Gear - Hearts Are Here (Ferguson 1987)

Guvnors (Francis and Walsh 1997)

Sons of Albion (Freethy 2009)

Service Crew (Gall 2007)

48

Zulus (Gall 2005)

Good Afternoon Gentlemen! (Gardner 2005)

Apex to Zulu (George 2006)

Patches, Checks and Violence (Gough 2007)

Perry Boys Abroad (Hough 2009)

Perry Boys (Hough 2007)

Soul Crew (Jones and Rivers 2002)

Reflections of an Asian Football Casual (Khan 2010)

Rivals (King 2004)

A Boy’s Story (King 2000)

The Naughty Nineties (King and Knight 1999a)

Hoolifan (King and Knight 1999b)

Rise of the Footsoldier (Leach 2008)

Hooligans: A-L (Lowles and Nicholls 2007a)

Hooligans: M-Z (Lowles and Nicholls 2007b)

Hardcore (Lutwyche and Fowler 2008)

Walking Down The Manny Road (Mitchell 2011)

49

It’s Only a Game (Marriner 2006)

The Trouble with Taffies (Marsh 2009)

Soul Crew Seasiders (Marsh 2007)

After The Match Begins (McCall and Robb 2007)

Getting A Nasty Shock (McDonnell 2012)

Scally (Nicholls 2002)

Come On Then (O’Hagan 2007)

Celtic Soccer Crew (Kane 2006)

The Men in Black (O’Neill 2005)

Red Army General (O’Neill 2004)

One Eyed Baz (Patterson 2012)

6:57: The Story of Pompey’s Hooligan Crew (Payne 2006)

Top Boys (Pennant 2005)

Cass (Pennant 2008)

Congratulations: You Have Just Met the ICF (Pennant 2002)

Thirty Years of Hurt (Pennant and Nicholls 2006)

Want Some Aggro? (Pennant and Smith 2004)

50

Terrace Legends (Pennant and King 2003)

Rolling With the 6.57 Crew (Pennant and Silvester 2003)

Suicide Squad (Porter 2005)

The Young Guvnors (Rhoden 2008)

Congratulations, You Have Been a Victim of Casual Violence (Rivers 2005)

MIG Crew (Robinson 2007)

Oh Yes, Oh Yes, We Are The PPS (Routledge 2010)

Sharpe as a Blade (Sharpe 2008)

Gilly (Shaw and King 2005)

Dressers Part 1 (Smith 2012)

For The Claret and Blue (Smith 2009)

Don’t Look Back In Anger (Spiers 2012)

Sully (Sullivan 2008)

Sully: Grafting For England (Sullivan 2010)

Massive Attack (Tanner 2010)

Tottenham Massive (Tanner 2006)

The Frontline (Theone 2003)

51

Swansea Jacks (Tooze with King 2007)

City Psychos (Tordoff 2002)

Steaming In (Ward 2004)

Well Frogged Out (Ward 1998)

All Quiet on the Hooligan Front (Ward 1996)

Who Wants It? (Ward and Henderson 2002)

Armed For the Match (Ward with Hickmott 2000)

No One Likes Us, We Don’t Care (Woods 2011)

Blue Murder (Worrall 2007)

52

Appendix 2: Clubs and Their Firms in the Archive

In the following audit of clubs associated with

hooligan firms through the naming of the firm, the

list is in A-Z order of football club. The hooligan

memoir book authors in the archive collected in the

School of Human Movement Studies at Charles Sturt

University, NSW, Australia, associated with each

club are listed alongside in brackets.

Aberdeen (Allan 1989; Rivers 2005)

Arsenal (Ward 2004)

Aston Villa (Brown and Brittle 2006; Lutwyche and Fowler 2008)

Bolton Wanderers (Mitchell 2011)

Birmingham City (Gall 2005; George 2006; Patterson 2012)

Bradford City (McDonnell 2012)

53

Brighton and Hove Albion (Brown and Harvey 2001)

Bristol Rovers (Brown 2000, 2009)

Burnley (Porter 2005)

Cardiff City (Jones and Rivers 2002; Marsh 2007, 2009; Gough 2007, Abraham 2008, 2009, 2010; Davies 2009)

Carlisle United (Dodd and McNee 1998)

Celtic (O’Kane 2006)

Chelsea (King and Knight 1999a, 1999b, Ward, with Hickmott 2000,

King 2000, Ward and Henderson 2002, Buglioni and King 2006,

Worrall 2007)

Dundee United and Dundee (McCall and Robb 2007)

Everton (Nicholls 2002)

Hearts (Ferguson 1987)

Hibernian (Dykes and Colvin 2007; Blance and Terry 2009)

Huddersfield Town (O’Hagan 2007)

Hull City (Tordoff 2002)

Leeds United (Gall 2007)

54

Leicester City (Khan 2010)

Liverpool (Allt 2004)

Luton Town (Robinson 2007)

Manchester City (Francis and Walsh 1997; Rhoden 2008; Sullivan 2008, 2010; Bennion 2011)

Manchester United (Buford 2001; O’Neill 2004, 2005; Blaney 2012, 2013; Hough 2007, 2009)

Middlesbrough (Theone 2003; Debrick 2005)

Millwall (Woods 2011)

Motherwell (Smith 2012)

Nottingham Forest (Clarke and King 2005)

Oldham (Spiers 2012)

Portsmouth (Pennant and Silvester 2003; Beech 2006; Payne 2006; Sinclair 2008)

Preston North End (Routledge 2010)

Rangers (Carrick 2006; Chugg 2011)

Sheffield United (Cowens 2001, 2009; Cowens and Cronshaw 2007; Sharpe 2008)

Sheffield Wednesday (Allen and Naylor 2005; Cowens

55

and Cronshaw 2007; Cronshaw, 2012)

Stoke City (Chester 2003, 2005)

Swansea City (Tooze and King 2007; Marsh, 2009)

Tottenham Hotspur (Tanner 2006, 2010)

Watford (Brimson and Brimson 1996b)

West Bromwich Albion (Freethy 2009)

West Ham United (Leach 2003; Gardner 2005; Pennant 2002,

2008; Pennant and Smith 2004; Smith 2009)

Wolverhampton Wanderers (Shaw and King 2005)

Wrexham (Marsh 2009)

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